Will Dow keep rising? It's anyone's guess

So the Dow Jones industrial average broke a record this month. Now what?

It's impossible to predict how the Dow, that popular barometer of the stock market, will zig and zag from here. But we can look at the previous times the Dow burst through a record, and measure how long it kept rising and why it eventually stopped -- ending the bull market. What does history show?

After it broke one record, the Dow kept rising for nearly nine years. After another, it rose for seven years, and after another, for five.

But after one, it topped out just two months later. In most cases, the bull run ended because inflation and interest rates were rising and investors feared a recession loomed. Those conditions don't exist today.

After hitting a record of 382.74 on Nov. 23, 1954, the Dow kept rising for seven years, gaining 92 percent and peaking at 734.91 on Dec. 13, 1961. But by June 26, 1962, the index had fallen 27 percent, to 535.76.

On Nov. 10, 1972, the Dow broke a record that had stood since 1966, closing at 995.26. It kept rising for just two months, gaining 6 percent and peaking at 1,051.70 on Jan. 11, 1973. By Dec. 6, 1974, the country was stuck in recession and the Dow was down to 577.60.

-- AP